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Khan searched his face. "Are you sure you're a healer and not a council member?"
He eyed the Dark Lord, trying to determine whether he was being sarcastic or not. "I did my best to stay under the radar back home, to avoid being found by that mob-boss guy I told you about. So, no, I wasn't part of any fae witch council, nor would I be. Just using polite language for this conversation and not swearing is making my eye twitch."
Khan actually chuckled. "You fae witches from the future are quite amusing."
He hoped that was a compliment, although River wasn't entirely sure it was.
The other fae witch male continued, "I appreciate you trying to be polite. I make a few allowances for those from a different time or country. However, in public you need to be on your best behavior. Might and strength still rules in this time period, even if it's with magic, and I won't allow myself to be shown as weak given recent developments." He recrossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. "But enough about me. It's your future here we still need to determine. I'll give you two weeks to decide what to do. My people will accept how you need time to heal and recover before being moved anywhere. After that, however, you'll have to make a choice, Dr. River Vale. Either you'll have to reside inside my territory or go back to the future as soon as Yesenia can accomplish it. And if your sister hasn't mentioned it, you can return since you share her bloodline, even if you're only a half sibling."
Khan really did know a hell of a lot of details about River's family if he knew about the half sibling thing. "Wait a second—that's not really much of a choice."
And neither one really included Nora. Even if River wasn't sure where the fuck they were going, relationship-wise, he didn't like her being erased from his future before he'd even had a chance to really get to know her.
Khan shrugged. "They're the choices you have until I can better determine your character and loyalties."
Anger danced along his neck and River clenched his fingers into a fist. "I'm not going to fucking betray you. What reason do I have to do that?"
"The reasons remain to be seen. But to allay one of your concerns—if you wed the vampire, she may live with you in the fae witch territory. She would face less judgment and could truly start over. She might like that."
River still felt as if he were drowning in terms of understanding late-nineteenth-century London. And even if he hated asking so many damn questions, he needed an answer to Khan's vague bullshit. "What do you mean?"
Khan shrugged. "The rumors about her past wouldn't follow her since the fae witches pay little attention to fifty-year-old scandals; we almost never enter a frozen state and therefore have much shorter lifespans. At any rate, Nora would, in essence, be starting over in a new place without her whispers weighing her down. And the location is still close to her family, as well as yours, which makes visiting easy." He paused a beat—probably for fucking dramatics—and then added, "I'll leave the rest of why that may be a good thing for you to fill in on your own."
River opened his mouth, but the Dark Lord stood upright and took a few steps toward the door. "Ask any other questions via letter or save them until the next time we chat. For now, I need to be going."
River stood. "Wait—just one last thing." Khan raised an eyebrow in question, and he asked, "I want to ask Leo to help train me. Self-defense, hand-to-hand combat, even knives or guns, or whatever stuff you use here. I don't want to repeat what happened to me, with being jumped and caught unprepared, if I can help it."
Khan studied him a few beats, but River didn't fidget. Finally the fae witch answered, "I'll allow it, provided you send me brief letters of your progress. I don't want any surprises."
What, like if Leo was training an army of spy assassins on the sly?
But somehow River bit the inside of his cheek and resisted being a smartass. Instead, he nodded. "I can do that, Dark Lord Khan."
"Good. Before I see you next, probably in about a week, I'm sending one of my trackers to meet with you."
He resisted a sigh. "So you can find me, if I disappear."
"Clever witch. Yes."
Trackers had a type of magic where once they touched and assessed a fae witch's abilities, they could locate them anywhere in the world, provided the person in question was still alive.
He didn't like the idea of a magical version of a tracking chip, but it could be worse. And if it gave him more freedom, he'd take it. "No problem. Send him or her, and I'll do it without complaint."
Khan said goodbye and left River alone.
Sitting back down into the chair, he rubbed his hands over his face. He had two weeks before he decided his future?Fuck.That wasn't very long to figure out what to do.
And Khan seemed to think he should decide about whether to marry Nora or not by then as well.
Marriage was supposed to be forever—or at least seemed that way when you did it, although he was unsure about divorce in 1890—but River didn't exactly feel as if he had to marry the vampire or he'd be miserable for the rest of his life. He liked Nora. Hell, he enjoyed kissing the shit out of her too.
But there were boundaries they hadn't crossed, ones he needed to explore. Because River didn't cheat on females, never had. So marriage for him meant fidelity.
However, he liked sex. A lot. And as sweet as Nora was, or how much her kiss drove him crazy, he couldn't marry her if she wanted to be celibate for the rest of her life.
He wasn't quite that much of a fucking white knight.
Don't get ahead of yourself, River.They'd only known each other a short while. He'd just need to take it as it came.
